The Statistics Road at Agargaon area has turned into a vehicle junkyard as hundreds of vehicles confiscated by the police lie in huge pileups there spilling all over the road.
This situation is not only an eyesore and but highly impede traffic movement on the road creating nuisance to the local passengers.
The place had become a sanctuary for of drug addicts, sex workers, muggers and petty criminals, said the locals.
During night, illegal activities go unabated in the area, they alleged.
Police had seized and then dumped these vehicles in the area mostly on the ground of not being registered or not having fitness certificates. The vehicles include both motor and non-motorised vehicles that had been wrecked in accidents.
It was found that the condition of most of the vehicles has deteriorated largely.
What remains of them is only their shell due to rusting and lack of maintenance
A number of ministerial departments, government offices, staff quarters, and educational institutions are situated on the Statistics Road which also called the UGC Road.
Starting from the main road of Begum Rokeya Avenue in Agargaon, the road meets with the University Grant Commission (UGC) intersection. It also links three other roads including Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC) road, Taltola High School Road and Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies road or link road of Shahid Shahabuddin Shorok.
A link road from Grameen Bank at Mirpur-2 to the Shahid Shahabuddin Shorok at Agargaon is also under construction by Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC). Upon completion of the road, the Statistics road will also connect with the Grameen Bank-Agargaon link road.
Al Amin, a government official who lives in the staff quarter along the road, said: “The seized vehicles are dumped in front of the government offices and staff quarter in a way that we hardly have any space to move inside the area.”
Rafiqul Islam, a resident of Taltola, said: “One of the biggest problems in Dhaka is lack of parking space. Considering this, shouldn’t there be an alternative arrangement to dump these vehicles rather than occupying such a prominent public place?”
Rafiqual also alleged that the road has become totally unusable for the pedestrians due to illegal shops, police box and the socially unacceptable activities that run there almost every day.
Masudur Rahman, Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (media and publication), told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have dumped the abandoned vehicles on the road as there are not enough vehicle junkyards in the city.”
“First, we try to contact the owners of the seized vehicles to hand those over. If we fail to do so, we dump them on the road,” he added.
He further said no government authority had asked them yet to free the road. Therefore, they had been using the road as junkyard.
Md Kabir Ahmed Bhuiyan, chief engineer of Public Works Department, said: “We have asked the DNCC to repair the road which is in a dilapidated condition.”
However, he said he did not have any information about the road turning into junkyard.
“The DNCC is maintaining many roads under the authority of PWD, but I don’t understand why they are not taking Statistics Road under their maintenance,” stated the chief engineer.
The road would be handed over the road to DNCC only for reconstruction, the land ownership would remain to PWD, he added
When contacted, Brigadier General Md Abul Khair, Chief Engineer of DNCC, said: “We have asked PWD authority to handover the road to the city corporation only after repairing.”
However, when asked about removing the junkyard from the road, the high-ups of DMP, PWD and DNCC did not make any comment.